F1's superficial thrills in Abu Dhabi

Was Abu Dhabi truly great motor racing, or all show and no substance? Edd Straw lets the dust settle before dissecting what was, in his eyes, an under-nourishing blockbuster

On the flight back from the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, I watched Total Recall. Not the 1990 movie version starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, but the recently-released 're-imagining'. It was perfectly watchable, lurching from one set piece to another and populated entirely by characters motivated only by the necessity to drive the plot to its predictably explosive conclusion.

It was an adequate way to pass a couple of hours and had all the thrills and spills expected of a movie of this type. But it was not a great piece of cinema, or even a particularly good one. It danced around the periphery of the themes of memory, reality and identity that could potentially have made it a more thought-provoking and less superficial experience.